Lost
by Mush's Skittles
Summary: I hate David Jacobs. I hate what he is, I hate what he was, I hate the opportunities he took, I hate the things he let go. But most of all, I hate what he was going to become. So I changed.


disclaimer.  nope.  not mine.  oh well.  disney rocks.

lost, by skittles.   4/15/03.  enjoy. 

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As I listened to my boots play a dejected rhythm on the cobblestones, I cursed myself with the most colorful curses I thought I deserved.

I was lost. Lost in every sense of the word.  I don't know what came over me.  Don't know why I left.  I guess it was just too much.  I guess the temptation was too great.  The lure of power was just too strong.

I was lost to my family… As I packed a few things and prepared my plan to run away, it seemed all I could see was their sad eyes.  Every time I looked behind me, I could see them standing there, watching, but not making a move to come get me.  I got angry.  Did they not want me with them?  Didn't they care enough for me to try to convince me to stay, or at least realize that I was leaving?

I was lost in my thoughts.  I realized, as I meandered through the streets, that I had been thinking in circles.  It's hard to answer the question "What's wrong?" when nothing is right.  What was wrong?  Everything.  Everything was painful, wrong, beneath my dignity, or just plain boring.  I'd had a taste of something exciting and out of the ordinary, and now my old life was not enough.  The never-ending knowledge quest I once considered school was now a torture chamber, locking me in a classroom for hours a day while I listened to mindless lectures.  I learned more about life in the three months I was a newsy than in the rest of my 17 years put together.  But, I reminded myself, it was nice to be warm during the bitter winds of these two New York winters I've spent in school since my newsy days.  

I was lost in the jungle of buildings and cobbled mazes.  Frankly, I didn't know where the hell I was.  All I knew was that I could see the Brooklyn Bridge between a couple of buildings and thought to head in that direction.  

I was lost in my aspirations. Spot had risen to power in Brooklyn, and though I chided myself for thinking of following in his footsteps, it lured me.  I am tempted to laugh at the thought of myself in Spot's position, wielding a cane, a key, and a slingshot, and smirking everyone I meet into submission.  It's just not me.  Nor can I see myself as Jack, adored by twenty-something newsies who will follow me wherever I go, so long as I act like I know what the hell I'm doing.  But I want something.  I want things done my way. I want the power.

I was lost in my standards.  My morals.  Hell, I was lost in my priorities.  Hell.  My new word.  I learned it's usefulness during my newsy days, and I resurrected it specifically for tonight as a souvenir of the past I was hoping to return to.  I tried consciously to let my grammar slip back away, back to go live with my parents, Sarah, and Les.  I tried not to think about my duties to my parents, my sister.  Tried not to think if I should have taken Les.  

I was at a loss of my friends.  I would be with new friends soon, newsies.  But what about my friends at school?  The emptiness they left threatened to eat me alive.  The vacant streets sang their condolences with buildings settling in the cooling night air, barking dogs, my own boot's clacking.  _We are empty too_, they sang.  _It is dark for us too.  But wait until the morning, there shall be light and fulfillment once again._

"Damn you," I swore aloud at the perversity of the inanimate whose voice was undoubtedly supplied by David Jacobs.  I took the insult personally, and let myself slip into the black hole of self pity.  I hated myself.  I hated what I was, I hated what I was becoming, but mostly, I hated what I wasn't.  

_That's why I left_, I told myself.  _I had to give up this façade, and find the real me._

And who was I?  The Walkin Mouth?  _Yes_, I thought.  Who was David Jacobs?  A name pinned on me before I even had a chance to develop myself.  How could it possibly represent me?  I had not even _been me when it was given to me._

My excuses failed to justify my betrayal to myself, and I decided to stop thinking so much.  I looked up and found that I seemed to be no closer to my goal, and had lost sight of the Bridge.  

I felt myself start to worry, but then let it go.

_I'm lost,_ I thought with disgust.  Never to be found.  Why worry?  Nothing mattered anymore.  Newsies don't worry about anything but how many papes they sell, what they're going to eat for dinner, and what girl were you with last night, Mush?

Not that I would have done that before.  But now?  Now it seemed like a pretty good idea.  Now, having a girl in my bed seemed pretty damn comforting.

There it is.  Another one of those words.  Emotional, colorful, meaningful words.  Why do anything half-way?  Why say "That was bad," when you can scream out, "GODDAMMIT!" and say what you feel?  That was what I had hated about David Jacobs.  Mouth started things, big things, and saw them through.  Mouth made waves.  Mouth made _headlines. But most of all, Mouth made money.  His own money, not his parents. _

But even as I thought these powerful, ambitious thoughts, I was still lost.

And every time I blinked, I saw my family. And my home.

What the hell am I doing?


End file.
